Take Down (23 page)

FORTY-TWO

Hanging up, Billy wondered if his time had run out.

Doucette had ordered Ike and T-Bird to grab Billy when he came into the hotel and bring him up to room 1444 in the main tower. Room 1444 was where Ricky Boswell had been tortured and killed, the designated torture chamber.

Doucette had decided to snuff him. Billy had spun so many lies in the past two days that it was hard to know which one had finally caught up to him. Or maybe it was an accumulation of lies that had tipped the scales. It really didn’t matter. Doucette wanted him gone.

He considered running. But that meant leaving his crew behind to face the music. Crunchie had promised to turn their names over to the police if he didn’t play ball. His crew would go down, and eventually the gaming board would find him, and he’d go down as well.

He could run, but he couldn’t hide.

Traffic was brutal. As the sunny afternoon turned to dusk, tourists poured out of the hotels and filled the Strip’s sidewalks and traffic crossings, eager for the party to start. By the time he pulled into Galaxy, it was dark. He threw his keys to the valet and went inside. It had been a great ride, and he had no regrets. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t make him suffer.

Ike and T-Bird were in the lobby. They’d ditched the new threads and gone back to basic black. No words were exchanged, just nods of the head. They both looked sad. Their million-dollar paydays had just gotten flushed down the toilet.

They boarded a service elevator. Ike punched a code into the keypad and appeared frustrated when the doors wouldn’t close. He tried the numbers again. This time the code worked, and Ike pressed the call button for the fourteenth floor. The elevator began its ascent.

Billy imagined himself making a run for it before they tried to kill him, and knew that he’d need the service elevator to facilitate his escape. Having watched Ike punch in the code, he said it three times to himself and stored it away in his memory for future use.

The doors parted on the fourteenth floor. He cleared his throat and said, “It’s been a gas, gents,” and heard them grunt in the affirmative. They got out and started their long walk. A lack of progress on finishing the floor was evident—electrical wires popping out of walls, unpainted drywall, piles of dust. Reaching number 1444, Ike paused.

“You scared?” Ike asked.

He shook his head. His old man had set the bar on dying and had demonstrated to his only child how a man was supposed to check out of this world. Three days off life support with no food or water, gasping for breath on rotted lungs, his body finally succumbing when his heart couldn’t take it anymore, fading away in his son’s arms with a satisfied expression on his face, as if to say,
See, kid, this is what tough is
.

“Bring it on,” he said.

They entered the suite. It had not changed since two nights ago—the prerequisite movie stills of iconic dead celebrities on the walls, the flat-screen TV showing the house channel.

“Anybody home?” Ike called out.

“We’re in the bedroom,” came Shaz’s voice from another room.

Billy started down the hall, prepared to face the music. It was how his old man would have handled the situation, and he was his old man’s son. Ike and T-Bird scrambled to catch up. The bedroom door was cracked. Kicking it open, he went in.

“I hear you’re looking for me,” he said.

Doucette, his bride, and Crunchie were having a party and sat in chairs, gorging on BBQ ribs, chicken wings, and other finger food they’d ordered from room service. A low-budget slasher film was playing on the TV, the sound muted. Other things stood out. Lines of coke on the coffee table. Duct tape on the night table. And a body wearing a black hood lying beneath the bedspread, struggling to free itself from crisscrossing ropes holding it down. The first thought that went through Billy’s mind was that he wasn’t going to die. The second thought was that the poor schmuck lying on the bed
was
going to die.

“What took you so long?” Doucette asked, licking BBQ sauce off his fingers.

“I got stuck in traffic. Who’s this?” he asked.

“Crunchie caught another cheater in the casino this afternoon.”

“Did he trip over him?”

“Fuck you, you little turd,” the old grifter said.

Billy edged up to the bed to get a better look at their prisoner. He was on a first-name basis with most cheaters in town and wondered if the poor bastard was someone he knew.

“Is this necessary?” he asked.

“Rock’s rules,” Doucette said. “Any cheaters we catch, Rock wants snuffed. Except you, of course. You’re special.”

The body on the bed let out a muffled cry. There was nothing Billy could do, and he watched Doucette snort up a line of coke that could have gotten an army on its toes.

“Let’s hear about your golf game. Are these people the Gypsies?”

“It’s them,” he said.

“How can you be sure?”

“I got them apart on the golf course, caught them in a few lies. Stupid stuff, like the name of the high school they went to. It’s definitely them.”

“Good. Now tell me how they’re planning to rip off my casino.”

Billy had been planning to hold on to this piece of information for as long as possible but didn’t think that was prudent anymore. “The scam involves the wedding gown,” he said.

Doucette’s handsome face went blank, not understanding.

“The bride’s gown is part of the scam. She’s wearing a Chinese knockoff made of a synthetic material. I saw her wearing it in the bridal shop, and it occurred to me that a gown made of synthetic material would not tear as easily as one made of silk. That was the tip-off.”

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Doucette asked Crunchie.

The old grifter nodded. “Billy’s onto something. Keep talking, kid.”

“The gown will be used to bring gaffed equipment into the casino. The bride wears a leather harness around her waist with a strap that hangs down the front, another strap down the back. The gaffed equipment hangs between her legs. She might walk stiffly, but that’s not uncommon with women in gowns. My guess is, she’ll be carrying a gaffed shoe to rip you off.”

“You think there’s a dealer involved,” the old grifter said.

“Yeah, and a pit boss. I noticed a number of high-stakes blackjack tables in the pit. They’ll target one of those.”

“How’s the shoe going to be gaffed?”

“Stacked and marked. Bleed the joint all night long.”

The old grifter flashed a crooked smile. “Like we did at the Mirage, only we used a floppy lady’s handbag to switch the shoe in. How much did we steal that night?”

“Two hundred large.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Doucette said, wiping his runny nose with a cocktail napkin. “Back this conversation up, and give it to me in plain English.”

Billy had never heard a casino owner admit he didn’t understand. Doucette’s days were numbered if he kept broadcasting how stupid he was.

“The bride will be carrying a dealing shoe beneath her gown,” he explained. “The shoe contains eight decks removed from your casino by a pit boss. These decks are stacked and also marked. The Gypsy wedding party will enter your casino and stand in front of a particular table. This table will be locked up: the dealer, pit boss, and players will be involved. The wedding party will create a distraction, and the shoe will be switched with the one on the table. The normal shoe will be stashed in the gown, and the wedding party will leave.

“The players at the table will win every hand because the cards are stacked. When the shoe is exhausted, the dealer will shuffle up, and a new round will be dealt. The players will read the backs of the cards and keep ripping you off. You’ll lose a fortune.”

“But the shoes are chained down,” Doucette said. “They can’t be switched, can they?”

Every time Doucette opened his mouth, he weakened the nation. Billy glanced at Crunchie, giving the old grifter the floor.

“The chain will be cut with a battery-powered saw hidden in the pit boss’s jacket,” Crunchie explained, “and the gaffed shoe will be secured to the table with a duplicate chain.”

“You’ve done this before,” Doucette said.

“In my previous life, yeah,” the old grifter said.

“So this is how we’re going to get ripped off? Pretty boy isn’t lying to me?”

“Billy’s telling the truth. This is the real work.”

The body on the bed begged for mercy. It was pitiful to hear, and the room’s occupants pretended not to. The last gasp of a dying man, Billy thought.

His education complete, Doucette crossed the bedroom and jabbed Billy in the chest. “You still rub me the wrong way. That’s a problem, because I’m depending on you to catch these fuckers. If this breaks bad, Rock will go off the reservation. You understand what I’m saying? The man takes no prisoners.”

“You can trust me. I won’t let you down,” Billy said.

“That’s the point, kid—I don’t trust you, and never will. In my world, trust has to be earned. So I’m going to make you earn my trust.”

Billy almost said “How?” but bit his tongue. He knew what was coming; it was as clear as the nose on his face. Doucette moved to the side of the bed and grabbed the black hood covering the prisoner’s head.

“I want you to put a bullet in our friend here,” Doucette said. “Do that, and you’ll earn my trust. Think you’re up to it?”

Billy weighed his options. The poor son of a bitch on the bed was a goner, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. But he could save himself. Viewed in that light, he really didn’t have any other choice.

“Sure,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Say it, you slimy little snake,” Doucette said.

“I’ll shoot him.”

“Very good.”

The body torqued beneath the covers. Maybe the poor bastard will suffocate and save me the trouble, he thought.

Doucette jerked away the hood. A large piece of duct tape covered the prisoner’s mouth. Recognition was like a splinter in the chest, and Billy thought he might get sick.

It was Mags, crying her heart out.

FORTY-THREE

“Crunchie tells me this little lady is a friend of yours,” Doucette said.

The words hung in the air. The old grifter had been waiting for a chance to get back at him, and Billy hoped there was more than one bullet in the gun they gave him to shoot Mags.

“She’s no friend,” he lied.

“But you know her,” the casino boss said.

“I caught her painting cards at blackjack in your casino and had a cocktail waitress give her the brush. She left her chips on the table and ran. End of story.”

“Why help her out? What was in it for you?”

“I felt bad for her. I knew what you were going to do to her.”

“That’s it? You felt bad for her? Give me a fucking break.”

“She also has a great ass.”

“That’s more like it. Were you going to hook up with her, and get it on?”

“That was the plan. Wouldn’t you?”

Doucette’s eyes did a little dance. Every guy in Vegas was a pussy hound; Doucette had checked Mags out while she was being tied up, and liked the merchandise. Talking about her ass was crude—especially after having agreed to kill her—but sometimes crude worked, and Billy wasn’t surprised when the casino boss slapped him on the shoulder.

“I could learn to like you,” Doucette said.

They waited another hour before moving her. Now tied to a wheelchair with the duct tape still in place, Mags was taken by service elevator to the basement garage, where Ike and T-Bird placed her struggling body into the cramped trunk of a limited-edition Mercedes-Benz AMG Black Series, a racecar capable of devouring any track in the world. She wasn’t the first cheater to take her last ride in the trunk of a car, and probably wouldn’t be the last.

“Be careful,” Doucette said. “The last time, you scratched the paint.”

“Can she breathe?” Billy asked.

The casino owner shrugged indifference and slammed the trunk. To Ike he said, “Meet us in the usual place. Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

“Got it, boss,” Ike said.

With Doucette at the wheel, Shaz riding shotgun, Crunchie in back, the Mercedes hurtled up the exit ramp, the roar of its engine echoing in the garage long after it was gone. Ike and T-Bird trotted toward a stairwell with Billy on their heels. He had agreed to kill someone to save his own skin. There was no doubt in his mind that he was capable of pulling the trigger. What he didn’t know was if he was capable of living with himself in the days and weeks that followed. His conscience would eat at him, and he was afraid it might eat him alive.

They took the stairwell to ground level. Went outside to the employee garage, climbed three levels, and got into the Camaro’s front bench seat, sitting three across. It was tight, but Billy wanted to talk to Ike and T-Bird during the drive and gauge their facial expressions. Ike made his tires scream going down the spiral exit ramp, and hit the street doing sixty.

“Think you can make it to Lake Mead in thirty minutes?” Billy asked.

“Who said we were going to Lake Mead?” Ike said.

“That’s where all the cheaters get buried.”

“Is there anything you don’t know, man?”

The deserts of Las Vegas were pockmarked with shallow graves that had no tombstones or markers. The nameless dead surrounded the city and often became unearthed during new home construction and road projects. In the past two decades, 150 had been discovered; it was believed there were many more. The police told the media that these deaths were the work of hit men and roaming serial killers, but Billy knew otherwise. The dead, in fact, were cheaters who’d gotten caught one too many times plying their trade. Not all cheaters met this gruesome fate, just those damn fools who didn’t know when to quit. The casinos got tired of busting them, so they whacked them instead.

Where the bodies popped up often indicated where the cheater was caught. The Apex area near Nellis Air Force Base was used by casinos on the north side of town, the roads leading to Mount Charleston were favored by old downtown’s casinos, and State Route 160 from Blue Diamond to Pahrump was popular with casinos on the Strip’s south end. But in terms of sheer numbers, the recreation area around Lake Mead won the prize, with half the city’s nameless graves having been found there, usually near campsites or hiking trails.

Ike took the 215 east into Henderson, got off on Lake Mead Parkway, and followed the signs toward Boulder Basin, a brightly lit Albertsons and Walmart the only stores for miles. It was a different world out here, the vast space easy to get swallowed up in. Billy realized he had broken into a cold sweat, and glanced at his car mates. Ike and T-Bird were sweating as well.

“Tell me how this is going to work,” he said.

“There’s a campsite up the road where we buried Ricky,” Ike said. “We’ll pull in there, and me and T will dig a grave. You’ll shoot the bitch, and we’ll plop her into the ground. That’s about it.”

“What’s Doucette’s role?”

“Doucette sits in his car with his sick wife and watches. They get off on this shit, especially her. She enjoys seeing people suffer.”

“Has she always been like that?”

“Once upon a time, she was cool. Wasn’t she, T?”

“Way cool,” T-Bird said.

“So what happened?”

“Doucette happened,” Ike said. “Shaz went to work stripping for him, and he started sending her down to Tijuana to get naked in a club he owns. Each time she came back, she was loaded with blow. The stuff is ninety percent pure, worth forty grand an ounce. All the strippers in Doucette’s clubs move blow for him. Rock fronts the operation, sells the stuff on the streets.”

“How did she get so messed up?”

“I’m getting to that part,” Ike said. “The girls carry the blow inside of them. Doucette’s rule—he thinks it’s safer that way. Some girls swallow the bags; others shove them up their assholes. Shaz used her pussy. One day she’s driving back from Tijuana and the bag broke. She passed out, crashed the car. Two days later, she woke up half-dead in a hospital bed with a diamond ring on her finger. Doucette married her while she was out.”

“So if she got arrested, she wouldn’t testify against him.”

“You got it.”

“Was she okay with that?”

“Yes and no. She got off on the ring. What made her crazy was that she couldn’t have no babies. The doctors had to take out her sex organs to save her life.”

“They gave her a hysterectomy.”

“Yeah. It screwed up her head. Shaz got out of the hospital and was arraigned. Judge felt sorry for her, gave her probation. That night, she was in the club, drinking champagne at the bar with Doucette. Another stripper comes over, kisses him on the mouth. Shaz grabs the bottle off the bar and crushes her skull. Poor kid bled to death. Shaz laughed over her dying body.”

“She got off on it?”

“Uh-huh. It was scary.”

“She’s a liability. Why doesn’t Doucette get rid of her?”

“She’s his wife. If she disappears, people will start asking questions. He’s stuck with her. Here’s our turn. So what are we going to do? You going to kill this bitch?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Billy said truthfully.

“Well, you’d better decide, because if you don’t, they’re gonna kill you.”

Ike drove down a bumpy gravel road to a deserted campsite. Lake Mead offered cheap lodging to campers and RVs, which included electrical hookups along with water and sewer, and the campsites were often full. This particular campsite was deserted, without a single tent or recreational vehicle. A sign tacked to a pine tree explained the situation.

CAMPSITE CLOSED FOR REPAIRS

USE BOULDER BEACH, CALLVILLE BAY,

OR ECHO BAY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

A pair of headlights blinked from the other side of the campsite.

“You make up your mind yet?” Ike asked.

“I need to play this situation as it lays. I won’t put either of you in jeopardy.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Ike parked and they climbed out of the Camaro. Billy’s skin was tingling and butterflies filled his stomach. Ike grabbed two shovels from the trunk and tossed one to this partner, striking him in the chest. T-Bird cursed him.

“Chill out,” Ike said.

They crossed the campsite to where the Mercedes was parked beneath the pine trees. The driver window came down and Doucette stuck his head out. He was holding a cell phone and appeared to be taking a call. “What took you so long? You forget how to get here?”

“My car don’t go as fast as yours,” Ike said.

“Here, take this.” Doucette passed Ike a handgun enclosed in plastic wrap. “It’s only got one bullet in the chamber, in case he tries to do something stupid.”

Ike lifted the front of his shirt and slipped the gun behind his belt. Then he and T-Bird walked into a clearing and started to dig, their bodies silhouetted by the moon’s glare.

Billy lingered behind, staring at the Mercedes’s trunk.

“Is she still alive?” he asked.

“She cried all the way here,” Doucette said.

He told himself not to think about it and walked into the clearing. Near where Ike and T-Bird were digging was a fresh mound of earth. Ricky Boswell’s final resting place, he guessed. A flashlight’s beam hit him in the face. Shaz, watching from the car.

“Are they going to join us?” he asked under his breath.

“They don’t want to leave fingerprints, so they stay in the car,” Ike said.

Shaz ran the flashlight’s beam over their faces. She eventually grew bored with the procedure and shut the flashlight off.

“You make up your mind yet?” Ike asked.

“Still working on it,” Billy said.

Soon the grave was ready. Coffin shaped, three feet across, six feet long. Ike tossed his shovel to the ground and went to the Mercedes to tell Doucette it was time. The Mercedes’s trunk popped open. Ike returned to the campsite dragging Mags by the collar of her blouse. She looked bad, hair in her face, sobbing through the duct tape, losing it.

Ike brought her to the edge of the grave, then retreated. Mags found the courage to stop crying and gazed at Billy with the same bewitching eyes that had frozen him on the street corner in Providence so long ago. If he hadn’t jumped into her car that day, he would have gone on to become an engineer or a college professor the way his old man had wanted him to, his life filled with endless repetition and boredom. Mags had changed his universe, and if she died here tonight, a part of him would die as well.

He made Mags face the grave. His lips brushed her ear. Four words came out of his mouth, barely a whisper. Then he stepped back.

The campsite was quiet. No one around for miles. He had never shot anyone before. There was a first time for everything, he supposed.

“Give me the gun,” he said.

Ike drew the gun and tore away the plastic before handing it to him. “You ever shoot a Glock before? There’s nothing to it—just aim and squeeze the trigger.”

“Got it.”

The gun felt heavy in his hand. It was black, boxy, with a dull polycarbonate sheen. He spent a moment finding the sweet spot on the back of Mags’s head that was his target. He took a deep breath. Raising his arm, he aimed, then stole a sideways glance at Ike and T-Bird to gauge their reactions. They had turned into statues, their mouths wide open as if catching flies. He squeezed the trigger. The bang reminded him of a firecracker going off. A tuft of hair flew into the air, and Mags tumbled into the grave. One second she was there, the next, gone. The shot echoed across the distant lake before finally coming to rest.

“Fucking A. I didn’t think he was gonna do it,” T-Bird said.

“Me, neither,” Ike said.

He lowered his arm, unsure what came next. Shaz rushed into the clearing clutching a Maglite. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him to the edge of the grave. Her flashlight found the back of Mags’s bloodied head and she squealed with perverse delight.

“You did it,” she gushed.

“You sound surprised.”

“I didn’t think you had it in you. You whispered in her ear. What did you say?”

“Have a nice eternity. I saw it in a movie once.”

“That’s cool. I’ll remember that.”

“Are we done?”

“We’re more than done. Good job.”

“You want the gun?”